Bristol Games Hub News

Bristol Games Hub is a non-profit space for games and play. We run this newsletter, host events, and also rent desk space at cost price with no strings attached so you can get on with creating amazing games. Contact nina at aurochdigital.com for more information.

To have your news, events and/or job opportunities featured in the monthly newsletter, you can contact jake@aurochdigital.com. The deadline for entries is 10th July.

Summer is here! This means we’re taking a break from the Anti-Socials, which will return in September.

Games Hub News

SW Freelancer/Company Dev Directory
If you’re looking for people to help on a project, or you are available for work, put your details in.

Please only list info you’re happy to have in the public domain. The directory can be found here.

Dev Scene News

Auroch Digital

We’re pleased to announce that our successfully Kickstarted ‘Elections of US America Election: The Card Game’ is now available to buy on Amazon! We’ve added a blog post on our site to accompany the news which you can find here.

Work is progressing well on Dark Future: Blood Red States and Ogre. In case you missed it, Steve Jackson Games recently put out a selection of models from in-game (pre-alpha) on their YouTube channel!

We’ll have more to share on these two projects very soon.

Ndemic Creations

Plague Inc: The Board Game gathered pace, earning some glowing words from the likes of Geek & Sundry, The Guardian and Ars Technica. We’ve also hit the ‘start’ button on the game’s second production run!

Plague Inc: Evolved headlined this month’s Humble Monthly Bundle, alongside Stellaris and some other great games, which meant a lot of new players joining the fold on PC and a lot of streamers taking their first forays in infection.

Jobs & Opportunities

Reach Robotics

PM Studio

We have two new open calls for funded artist residencies at the studio, our Artist in Residence and New Talent residencies. More information about each can be found here.

3d3

3d3 have announce several funded PhDs. One that may be of interest is the Experience Design for Sensory Storytelling. There’s more information here, though its worth noting that the deadline is extremely tight (19 June)!

Smart Oxford Playable City Commission

The commission challenges creative from around the world to produce an idea that puts people and play at the heart of the city of Oxford. They are looking for artists, designers, architects, urbanists, interaction designers, technologists and creative practitioners who can demonstrate a history of delivering high quality, innovative practice. More info can be found here (deadline is the 20th!)

Events Diary

Diversity in Tech (24th June @ Watershed)

For all individuals and companies who are keen for our tech workforce to reflect the diverse nature of society. There will be three sessions with invited speakers from a range of companies and organisations (including WISE, BCS, Mayden, Shift) to kick off lots of discussion about diversity in tech.

Bristol Games Hub Newsletter

Bristol Games Hub is a non-profit space for games and play. We run this newsletter, host events and also rent desk space at a cost price with no strings attached so you can get on and create amazing games. Contact jake at aurochdigital.com for more information or with news items for the next newsletter and let us news for the next one by 15th June please!

There is also a demo from Hyper Thetical Games; “Designed in UE4 specifically for VR, CentraSphere is a checkpoint racing game set inside a sphere for 1 – 2 players. Single players race for extra time checkpoints while shooting targets for bonus points before running out of time and being plunged into darkness. 2 player pits players against each other battling for checkpoint supremacy, shooting will create slow bubbles on the arena to impede opponents. A full featured version is on our long term plans, but we have 3 other games planned to make first.”

Games Hub News:

Also note; May Meetup – Intro to Procedural Mesh Generation is on 20th. More info below in Events.

SW Freelancer/Company Dev Directory
If you’re looking for people to help on a project, or you are available for work – put your details in.
Please only list info you’re happy to have in the public domain: http://bit.ly/bghdirectory

Dev Scene News

Hyper Thetical Games

Ele-Mental is a fast paced arcade game of colour matching and enemy dodging available on PSVita in the Playstation Mobile store, from the newly established indie game studio Hyper Thetical Games. A simple concept but with very challenging gameplay, requiring quick thinking and a high level of hand-eye coordination. Players must use the face buttons to switch elements to absorb enemies of the same elemental type. As a sucker for difficult games, Chris wanted to make this a challenge for anyone to play, but also make some modes accessible for any new player to get started. Each game mode includes a high score so players can keep on improving. Enemy absorption stats are tracked from each game and certain milestones will earn points which can be used to unlock more features, music and game modes. The games second version release saw the inclusion of PSTV compatibility.We are currently working on a third and final version which will add some very difficult challenges to earn medals. A special reward has been planned for the first person to collect them all and show us the proof. We are now working using Unreal engine and intend to bring a sequel that will graphically live up to the element nature of the name, and of course the mental part. The release of our game CentraSphere that was showcased at the South West VR conference is also just around the corner and we have another new project we intend to start working on and announcing soon. Check out our website for more information on our work. www.HyperTheticalGames.com

Creative Gaming Award

PLAY15 festival introduces the new ‘Creative Gaming Award’ You can submit concepts, alpha, beta for any game that deals with the medium in a creative way. Categories are;
– Most Creative Game
– Most Innovative Newcomer
Deadline is 15th July and there is no cost to enter. Winner gets 3000 euros! Full info on this PDF.

GAMe-ONe Show

GAMe-ONe is a new games exhibition here in Bristol at the UWE Exhibition Centre. It’s on October 24th and 25th 2015. There are lots of ways for developers to get involved and show their games to gamers. See here for the stand & signup info and here for thefloorplan. The Indie section is a table top allocation that is without charge to the small developers in exchange for them promoting the event to all their existing customers.

Kinect Testers Needed!

This is a request for interested female participants to take part in an investigation into how virtual avatar representation can affect perceptions of the environment & body. This experiment makes use of Microsoft Kinect and will involve a small amount of physical exertion, primarily using arms. Short semi-structured interviews will be given throughout the experiment, and the entire experiment will take approximately 45 minutes, total. The research has been approved by UWE’s research ethics committee. If you are interested, please visit: http://doodle.com/uwn5f8kvza4hu4bg
Or for more information, please contact: Sophie2.Pink at live.uwe.ac.uk

Auroch Digital

We’re running a competition for Chainsaw Warrior & Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night where you can win an original copy of the game! Full info is here. The BBC game we did (with Demon Apathy and Force of Habit) is still live on BBC Taster, please give it a play and rate it! We’re also looking for an office manager/bookkeeper. Full info is here. Thanks!

Force of Habit

Friendship Club has had a few new releases on Early Access, including the Armour Update (http://timmybibble.com/blog/release-18-armour/)! We’ve also rigged the animation engine (Spine) with the ability to directly make calls to FMOD via marker keyframes which is blimmin’ great – sound event implementation without the need for extra programming (give us a shout if you want a little bit of insight into this – we can maybe do a blog post). Oh yeah, and you can now have unlimited bullets too, as if eight per player weren’t enough already…

Fundsurfer

Fundsurfer is a Bristol based funding platform for creative, social, and green projects. Raise money through crowdfunding, startup loans, peer-to-peer lending, and more.

We really want to help some game projects! Our crowdfunding fees are normally 5%, but we are slashing that to 2.5% for all game projects that go live before the end of June.

Duel Launches!

PM Studio-based Duel has now launched in the UK; check it out here – http://duel.me/ – they want feedback!

Opposable Games

Greenlight Greenlight Greenlight! Opposable Games is preparing for launching a Salvaged Greenlight campaign right now. We’re looking to launch in a couple of weeks so please keep an eye out and give us a vote when it goes up. The link won’t work until we publish the Greenlight but you can have it anyways, here it is, don’t say we never give you anything.

We’ve been in the studio recording dialogue with the excellent Kate Davies for the Salvaged multi part audio log Salvaged prologue, which has been rather fun. The logs are proving to be a wicked intro to the game and are lovely and atmospheric due to the efforts of audio extraordinaire Joe Charles AKA LabGrownMusic AKA Gizmode. Check them out right here – Part One, Part Two, Part Three. Part Four will be up tomorrow so keep an eye out on our social feeds for news of that one.

We’ve also been getting pretty blog-happy with a series of explorations of the Salvaged development process, here’s a selection from the excellent Salvaged writer-designer Daniel Dowsing.

Jobs & Opportunities

Aardman

Here at Aardman we have some particularly meaty and exciting projects in the pipeline at the moment and need more talented and enthusiastic devs to come and join our steadily-growing team of awesome.
We are looking for:

Good HTML5 / JS game developers, particularly those familiar with Phaser to join our team working on a chunky and highly creative project which is all about inspiring the next generation of game makers. Would be ideal for any ex-Flash game devs who have graduated onto JS.

Unity devs who like an interesting technical challenge to work on a game project for some innovative and rather cool new hardware (may involve sheep).

For more info please contact digital at aardman.com

Watershed

Graduate Job opportunity at @wshed as a Researcher, funded by @JerwoodFworking across creative team, marketing & PR: http://wshd.to/14e The successful participant will work with colleagues across the organisation, supporting the creative producing teams, marketing and PR and the Head of Development with insight, research and ideas. They will work with Watershed’s Talent network to capture their stories for wider sharing – offering them a unique way into a thriving network of creative economy collaborators and partners.

Auroch Digital

Auroch Digital is a small, friendly, creative company that makes innovative computer games. We have a staff team of 13 plus freelancers and partners. We’re centrally based in Bristol with offices in Bristol Games Hub on Stokes Croft. We are looking for an experienced, qualified bookkeeper and office manager to take care of our finances, ensure the office runs smoothly, efficiently and effectively and provide personal assistant support to both the Directors. We need a highly organised and friendly person to be at the heart of our business! No experience in the games industry is necessary. Full info and how to apply is here.

Bristol Data Dome Commissions

Bristol now has a 3D immersive data dome in the At Bristol Planetarium in Millennium Square. It’s going to need content and there are up to three development commissions available to produce prototype works that will profile the potential of the dome for Bristol audiences. The estimated total budget for all the commissions is £60k. After the workshop, teams will be invited to complete a short and simple proposal document and attend a pitching session on or around Tuesday 2nd June when the commissions will be awarded. If you are interested REACT invites you for lunch and to an afternoon workshop at Watershed Friday 22nd May to explore the potential of this exciting new environment for your company and for communities in the city. If you want to go please email joanna.lansdowne at watershed.co.uk

Events Diary

GamesAid (May 11th)

GamesAid’s sell-out Comedy night, ‘Stand Up for GamesAid’ returned to the world-famous London Comedy Store on May 11th, marking its third year. The previous two years have seen great success as the event has established itself as a favorite in the industry calendar.

Hello fellow Unity heads! We had a really good turn out at the last meetup so we hope to see just as many of you this time around. Alexander Birke will give the talk on how to create 3D models only with the use of programming, a bit of cleverness and a hefty dose of math. As always we follow the talk with a show and tell session where you can ask for feedback or help with whatever you are currently making with Unity. After the meetup we head of to the Bell for a relaxing pint or two. Signup to the meetup here.

Ken Eklund: The Future is an authentic fiction (6pm, 3rd June @Watershed)

Ken Eklund designs immersive play experiences about socially relevant issues like climate change and the environment. He’ll be speaking about his previous projects including World Without Oil, FutureCoast and Giskin Anomaly, as well as new cross-media works designed to engage people by playfully shaping positive futures. Ken is an internationally recognised game and experience designer, creating “immersive stories that seek to write themselves.” His socially relevant alternate-reality games explore real-world issues through collaborative play. His work springs from deep beliefs about the transformative effect of participation and the power of play to open people up to true inquiry and learning. More Info & Tickets

Special Offer on New Desks! Bristol Games Hub is offering 5 desks to new residents at half-price for the first month ie just £55 (that’s internet, all bills, tea &coffee and of course a desk and chair). Please email Debbie if you’re interested at debbie at aurochdigital dot com

Next Games Hub Anti-Social: 27th November, 7.30pm – New Starts! level 1 Begins! Four amazing talks about kicking it all off!

How to Start a Games Studio
Auroch Digital’s Tomas Rawlings will share his top tips for how to start your own games development studio. Whether you’re thinking of taking the leap or already on the road to Indie Stardom, there will be pointers from over 10 years running his own studios to help you along.

Green Capital Digital Challenge – Find out all about it!
Debbie, producer of the Digital Challenge, will talk about this great opportunity to take part in an amazing gamejam/hack event where the best game/app will win £50,000 to develop it. More info here too.

WebStart Bristol
Mike Jackson, Founder and CEO of Bristol based incubator WebStart Bristol will talk about his programme based at the Engine Shed and the challenges and opportunities of getting further investment.

Kickstarter Top TipsConstance Fleuriot will share her knowledge on using crowdfunding to support your game project, after attending a Kickstarter presentation organised by TIGA in London. Constance is about to launch her own call for funds to develop a game, Lux & The Shadowmaker, as part of Creative England’s Queen Of Code initiative with Crowdfunder UK.

Unity Developer Group – 24th November, 7.30pm

For this month’s talk, Unity meetup members David and Jeremy have stepped up to take you on a whirlwind deconstruction of the development of their kids App: Alpine Train 3D “We are going to whizz through loads of topics from Unity techniques and bespoke tools to monetisation. We want to share with you all that we have learned along the way and hopefully inspire you to get your idea out there too. There will be something for everyone in this talk, as we cover the whole process of development, publishing and marketing all within about an hour” Ambitious!

P.S. If you’d like to give a talk at a Unity meetup, just get in touch.

Dev Scene News

Join Bristol Games Hub!

The Bristol games hub is a non-profit that offers very cheap & flexible dev space – £110 per desk per month. That’s everything – rates, internet, desk itself, tea, coffee, access to meeting rooms, events etc. Plus you’re in a supportive community of fellow devs to chat with and share knowledge. There is no contract and you can expand/contract the number of desks on a per month basis as your project needs change. Contact geoff at aurochdigital dot com for more info or to book a time to visit the space.

Don’t Die, Mr. Robot! for PSVita – made in Weston-super-Mare

The game was released on 29th October for PSVita in the EU, and 4th November for the Americas. It’s an arcade style dodge-em-up with loads of game modes, unlockables and a rather tasty soundtrack made by us too. You can learn more about our game here: http://infinitestategames.com/games/ddmr/Infinite State Games is a two man team based in Weston-super-Mare. We have developed the game and published it entirely by ourselves, and hope to bring it next to iOS platforms while working on our next release for PSVita. If you want any more information or maybe would be interested in a talk from us don’t hesitate to ask. All the best, Team ISG.

Victory at Sea TIGA Win!

Evil Twin Artworks’ WWII Naval battle game – Victory At Sea was nominated in two categories at the 2014 TIGA Awards. The game ended up winning the Best Action/Adventure by a Small Studio Award at the event on London’s Southbank.

Auroch Digital

One of our newsgames, NarcoGuerra, has been nominated for a Media Innovation Award. Fingers crossed! Full info here
We have also announced our latest Games Workshop collaboration – Chainsaw Warrior: Lords of the Night. More info here and a nice article on RPS! We also have other exciting news but that’ll have to wait til next month when we can talk about it publicly 😉 Auroch is thriving and now has a permanent staff team of 13.

Force Of Habit

We’ve released two updates to Friendship Club since the last newsletter, adding a new character and the ability to play in teams. Get your 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 1 (or even 2 vs 1 vs 1) on everyone! We may be hosting a small gathering in our studio for the next Ludum Dare. Shoot me an email if interested as we have limited space: ashley@forceofhab.it

Opposable also announced a partnership with Motion Experiential to create some awesome Virtual Reality experiences, and are in the early stages of organising the SouthWestVR conference that will take place on February 26 2015, showcasing everything that is most awesome with Virtual Reality, and put Bristol and Bath in the center stage of this new exciting technology. They have also begun full production of their multi-screen (and now Virtual Reality based) game Salvaged, and in doing so welcome three new members to the team – Thomas Greener and Rob Brooks as developers, and Mike Parker who is joining the 3d team. Opposable are on the lookout for volunteers / temp staff who are able to help out with virtual reality events, and thinking about hiring for a sales manager if the right person came along, interested people please get in touch via jobs@opposablegames.com

RTS Awards Open for Entries

The Royal Television Society in the West of England is calling for submissions for the 2014/15 RTS WoE Awards. There are interactive/games categories. All entries must have been broadcast or published between 1st December 2013 and 1st December 2014. Submission forms and a list of categories can be downloaded from the RTS website: www.rts.org.uk/bristol DEADLINE for submissions is Monday 1st December 2014. The Awards Gala will be held on Sunday March 8th 2015 at Bristol Old Vic, more details in the New Year.

Jobs & Opportunities

Bristol 2015, the company established to facilitate Bristol’s year as European Green Capital, is asking Europe’s brightest minds to identify new ways that software can be used to tackle environmental challenges in cities in the European Green Capital Digital Challenge. This will include a 48-hour Digital Challenge Hack Weekend on the 6-8 February hosted during Digital Bristol Week, produced by the BBC. This two stage challenge will see teams of developers compete for the chance to scoop cash prizes of up to £50,000 to stimulate innovation in the development of software applications and games, addressing five environmental challenge areas: energy, transport, food, resources and nature.

The Writing Platform Bursary 2015

There are two bursaries of £4000, available for writers and technologists to embark on a writing – or writing-related – collaboration over a period of three months. This is a fantastic opportunity for writers and technologists to collaborate, experiment and learn together, and to make work they wouldn’t be able to make on their own. Writers and technologists can apply individually or in pairs. The programme is open to UK residents aged 18 and over. The deadline to apply is Thursday 4th December. More info:http://www.thewritingplatform.com/bursary2015/

Events

Green Capital Digital Challenge Informal Chat (20th Nov, 6pm)

Bristol 2015 has just launched the Green Capital Digital Challenge. The Challenge is seeking professional teams to develop new software to address 5 environmental themes. More details can be found here. This meetup is for individuals looking to form a team to take part. If you have creative, tech, project management or green skills and experience this should be a great opportunity for you. Come along and meet other interested people over a beer or coffee at the PM Studio. More info here.

Below is news from the growing Bristol & South West games development scene. You find news from the hub, news from Bristol & SW developers then jobs, opportunities & events.

Bristol Games Hub is a non-profit space for games and play. We run this news letter, host events and also rent desk space at a cost price with no strings attached so you can get on and create amazing games. Contact geoff at aurochdigital.com for more information or with news items for the next newsletter and let us news for the next one by 15th Octoberplease!

SW Freelancer/Company Dev Directory
If you’re looking for people to help on a project, or you are available for work – put your details in. Please only list info that you’re happy to have in the public domain: http://bit.ly/bghdirectory

Next Games Hub Anti-Social: Thursday 25th September, 7.30pm

This month we’ve got: Auroch Digital’s Abhishek Sagi shares the basics of his award winning new technology for making cloth in games!

“Even today in video games, accuracy and level of detail for cloth in-game is mostly coarse due to complex non linear physical properties, and computing power necessary to simulate it real-time. The talk will provide an introduction to developing robust, scalable and parallelized soft body simulation frameworks for real-time and offline rendering.”

So join us on the 25th September at 7.30pm – we’ve got a buzzer now! The entrance is off Thomas Street, just up from the junction of Thomas St/Stokes Croft, above DHS Heating.

Games Hub News:

9th October 6pm – Games Marketing Chat
Making games is one things, selling them another… With around 200+ games PER DAY being released, how do you let players know about your creation? This informal group is going to discuss strategies, ideas and more. Contact tom at aurochdigital dot com for more info or just come to the hub that evening.

OpenCo! Visit the Hub!
The Games Hub is taking part in the OpenCo event where the doors are thrown open and you can come and check us out and what we do! If you’re really desperate for some Opposable action though…catch us at OpenCo at the hub on 2nd October:http://uk.openco.us/bath-bristol/

Dev Scene News

Queen of Code

Creative England and Crowdfunder.co.uk have joined in order to fund England’s top female game developers and freelancers via an innovative crowdfunding campaign. Female developers are asked to submit their campaigns, and the first 3 to hit their target will each receive a £5k boost from Creative England. More info here:www.crowdfunder.co.uk/queenofcode

GamesLab Campus

Creative England have teamed up with PlayStation® on an incubator and accelerator programme called GamesLab Campus. Creative England’s GamesLab Campus programme will invest a maximum of £250,000 into five Games companies (up to £50,000 each) to support the development of new and innovative entertainment experiences on PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®Vita. More details here:http://gameslab.creativeengland.co.uk/gameslab/campus/

Opposable Games

We recently published a short showreel with a whole host of our work on, so if you haven’t had the chance to check it out then do please take a look and pass it on. It features some pretty sweet music from local boy labgrownmusic and some rather tasty editing from another helpful local by the name of Jim Roper. A lot of what we’re doing is classified right now; if we told you we’d have to kill you. Sorry.

If you’re really desperate for some Opposable action though…catch us at OpenCo at the hub on 2nd October, or under the SouthWest VR monicker at the Watershed’s Sci Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder event on 25th October, or the Bath Digital Festivalon 27th October.

Auroch Digital

We’ve been giving our website a bit of a much needed re-vamp: check it out here!http://aurochdigital.com – oh and we also welcomed the 13th employee of Auroch, Mark, who joins our busy dev team!

Bertram Fiddle going on an adventure to EGX London

Rumpus will be at EGX London to showcase our point and click game staring leading Victorian explorator Bertram Fiddle. Visitors will be able to explore brand new locations, share a cup of tea with Sherlock Holmes and be dazzled by our wide array of fantastical moustaches and quirky noses. So if you are at EGX feel free to drop by, and give the game a go at our booth.

Get #hookedonmusic

Calling all music lovers. Last chance to help science figure out what makes pop music catchy. #hookedonmusic is a citizen science game developed by The Reading Room for the Museum of Science and Industry and supported by the Wellcome Trust. www.hookedonmusic.org.ukPEACEapp

Have a great game about facilitating peace or an idea for one? Submit it to PEACEapp, a competition that aims to showcase the work of developers who examine peace and promote games as venues for cultural dialogue and conflict management. Send your entry here by the October 15 deadline.http://www.unaoc.org/peaceapp/enter/

Events

Chaos Unpub: Playtest Event for Board & Card Games

On Saturday, 4th October we’ll be dedicating ourselves to playtesting unpublished tabletop games and providing valuable feedback in an attempt to bring those designs one-step closer to publication. We invite game designers, publishers, players, retailers and artists from all over the country to attend the first Chaos Unpub event…and it’s FREE! Hosted by Chaos Publishing, this event will be taking place at the Christian Malford Village Hall where we can open our doors for up to 150 budding designers/playtesters. We will be prepared with plenty of available parking at the venue and food available throughout the day. The event will start at 11:00 and run until 20:00. We hope to see you there!
Please find the full details at: http://www.meetup.com/Playtest/events/202898032/
…and also on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/events/659760337472982/

Bath Digital Festival – Gaming for Good

Games are doing much more now than just fun – they are educating, becoming therapy and helping to tackle serious problems.

Non-gamers often only see games in over-hyped tabloid headlines casting them in a bad light. However with around one in three of our fellow citizens now playing games, this session takes a second look at an industry that has grown in scope, subject matter and relevance. Join us to find out how Auroch Digital have been turning news into games, how Knowle West Media Center used games to talk about domestic violence and accessibility expert Ian Hamilton on how technology can be built to open them up to wider audiences.

Shadowing: Come and play in the light

As the sun sets and the street lights come on, traces of those who have passed under the lights are played throughout the city, re-animating the streets. As you walk under the light, the shadow of the previous visitor walks beside. While you interact or react to the shadow, your movements and actions are recorded, becoming the shadow for the next visitor. If a visitor remains under the lamp, the lamp reaches further back in time, playing back the shadows of its previous visitors. Shadowing will appear in locations across the city, and linger until the end of October. Shadowing.cchttp://shadowing.cc/

As part of her ongoing project Colony, artist Nikki Pugh has been in residence at the Pervasive Media Studio over the Summer constructing panicked heartbeats, twitchy tails and slinky vertebrae. Join us for a lunchtime talk (and possibly a walk afterwards) as all these are brought together to form landscape-reactive ‘creatures’, carried/worn by participants and designed to affect how we experience moving through the city.http://www.watershed.co.uk/pmstudio/project/colony

Lunchtime Talk: Oscar Raby Friday, 24 October 2014 13:00 to 14:00

In 1973 Oscar Raby’s father witnessed the execution of a group of prisoners captured by the military regime in Chile, the army he was a part of. Raby, a multimedia designer and visual artist, turned to the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset to tell his father’s story in Assent. Come along to hear about Oscar’s journey in interactive storytelling and the making of the innovative and moving Assent project. This talk is guest presented by Mandy Rose, director of UWE’s Digital Cultures Research Centre.http://oscarraby.net/wp/assent/

Below is news from the growing Bristol & South West games development scene. You find news from the hub, news from Bristol & SW developers then jobs, opportunities & events.

Bristol Games Hub is a non-profit space for games and play. We run this news letter, host events and also rent desk space at a cost price with no strings attached so you can get on and create amazing games. Contact geoff at aurochdigital.com for more information or with news items for the next newsletter and let us news for the next one by 15th Septemberplease!

SW Freelancer/Company Dev Directory If you’re looking for people to help on a project, or you are available for work – put your details in. Please only list info that you’re happy to have in the public domain: http://bit.ly/bghdirectory

At Rumpus we are currently creating The Adventurers of Bertram Fiddle, a point and click adventure game with tons of animation and dialogue. Since we are a small studio, a big focus has therefore been to reduce the workload when working with so much content. The topics covered include good workflow methodologies, automation, creating custom juicy workflows and doing other kinds of editor magic to accelerate your development.

So join us on the 28th August at 7.30pm – we’ve got a buzzer now! The entrance is off Thomas Street, just up from the junction of Thomas St/Stokes Croft, above DHS Heating.

Dev Scene News

Force Of Habit

Er, so much has happened! Earlier on in the month we released The Wonky Wagon update for Friendship Club (link), then last week we announced and released a game for OUYA called Neon Caves (link, link), and now today we’re announcing that our appetising debut Toast Time will be coming to Steam on August 27th!

We’re going to be at Insomnia 52 this weekend, and then flying over to Seattle for PAX Prime and releasing the game from there! Crazy. We’ll sadly be missing the next anti-social, so how about we throw Bristol a big games party when we’re back? Yeah? Cool. Ashley & Nick

Opposable Games

It’s Pesky gNats aplenty over at the Opposable Games side of the hub, so if you’ve got an interest in serious applications of the holiest of art forms (yes, we mean video games), then make sure you’re stalking for updates over at the Pesky gNats Twitter as there’s some really great content soon to come.

The first of our SouthWest VR events kicked off to great fanfare and glorious cupcakes complete with suitably jaw-dropped attendees. Drinks were drunk, talks were talked, wares were flaunted and hopefully some useful contacts were made by all. Luckily, nobody did any damage to themselves, gear or beer while flailing around on virtual rollercoasters, and that dreaded sim sickness didn’t rear its ugly head too much. The next event, planned to be bigger-er and better-er, will be announced through the SouthWest VR Twitter, Facebook and meetup group.

Opposable Games and SouthWest VR continued to fly the proverbial flag of virtual reality at the actual (real life) Balloon Fiesta, demonstrating just how much fun it is to be an elephant in a magic land of bouncy policemen (really). Further appearances from SouthWest VR and Opposable Games can be expected at OpenCO on 2nd October right here at the Bristol Games Hub, Bath Digital Festival on 29th October and as part of the Watershed’s Family Arts Festival on 25th October.

Auroch Digital

We’ve been asked to comment for some articles in the Guardian of late, coming off the back of our GameTheNews work:

iBeacons

We set up 100 iBeacons around Bristol – they’re in all of the major attractions (SS GB, Suspension Bridge, Bristol Museum etc). Happy to let any dev’s have access to the network to try a game related exercise. Network was featured in the Evening Post and a few other online PR avenues. Do let me know if you want any further info etc. Additionally – do you want a beacon or 2 in there/ your office. We’re building up a social networking/ discovery app for business too. Simon – simon at cpagroup.co.uk

Jobs & Opportunities

Aardman Digital

Aardman’s Digital team are on the look-out for talented, freelance developers with experience in the games and web industry. Specifically: Unity and Haxe Developers experienced in producing high-end mobile games and apps; and Drupal/ PHP developers. Please contact digital@aardman.com with your CV and examples of your work.

Playniac Needs an Artist

Events

Monthly Unity Meetup

You now the drill people. It’s meetup time again! This month’s Unity meetup will again be of a more open format (unless someone have a talk they are burning to give in which case you are more than welcome!) So come and show of your new cool ice shader, that randomly generated level creator that will bewilder players for hours or your new VR 5D flight simulator. As always you are also welcome to bring up any Unity related issues you are having and see if the wisdom of the crowd can’t help you. As always at around 10pm we will head to the local pub so any problems we have not been able to help you with at least can be temporarily forgotten. Join us the 20rd August 7.30pm at Bristol Games Hub 77 Stokes Croft BS1 3RD. Signup happens through our meetup page. Hope to see you there!.

28th August @ Bristol Games Hub – POPBOX

Calum Yuill from Picton Street Media will be demoing a user generated social video gaming platform prototype/wireframe with a view to seeking criticism and feedback from the development community. 7.30pm at the Game Hub, entry is free.

Playable Cities Conference – 10th/11th Sept

Featuring Google Creative Lab’s Tom Uglow, architect Usman Haque, artist Luke Jerram, Ogilvy’s Tara Austin and academics from the University of the West of England, this two-day international conference will explore the theme of the ‘Playable City’, asking what it might mean for citizens, urban planners, tech giants, small companies, artists and designers in imagining and making the cities of the future. On10 and 11 September, we will be bringing together a brilliant group of thinkers, makers, planners and civil disobedients to look at cities as playable places and ask the question: how do we make and unmake our future cities? The conference will feature playful interventions, networking, debate and discussion, artist commissions and an academic strand convened by the Digital Cultures Research Centre at UWE. For more information on the conference programme and speakers see; http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/conference14/

VR TGO 2014 – 11th Sept.

A future gazing conference that will inspire and inform developers and businesses using and looking to use VR on its potential. The conference will be looking where the future of VR is taking the entertainment and games industry while also looking see at this cutting edge technology can do for serious applications for automotive, modelling, training, marketing etc. Attendees will have the oppotunity to go hands on with both Sony’s Project Morpheus and Oculus Rift. More info here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/vrtgo-2014-vr-conference-tickets-11583525637

OpenCo – With Bristol Games Hub! 2nd Oct

What this space as the hub becomes part of the OpenCo national event – he’s the info so far! OpenCo is a community event spread across an entire city. Instead of going to a sterile hotel ballroom, attendees fan out to visit their selected companies’ headquarters. These “HostCO’s” are companies that are driving innovation through new business practices of open collaboration, open platforms, and an openness to new ideas and new business models. Hundreds of these companies open their doors during our festivals and share how they are trying to change the world and why.

Hi all. We’ve created a couple of resources to help people find jobs in game dev, companies find staff and also to find freelancers/services. There is a Facebook group where game dev jobs can be posted and also a Google Doc to list companies and freelancers…

Free to join and you can post your own job ads if you are looking for staff!

And

SW Freelancer/Company Dev Directory
If you’re looking for people to help on a project, or you are available for work, add your details. Please only list info you’re happy to share in the public domain: http://bit.ly/bghdirectory

Below is news from the growing Bristol & South West games development scene. You’ll find news from BGH first, news from Bristol & SW developers then jobs, opportunities & events.

Bristol Games Hub is a non-profit space for games and play. We run this newsletter, host events including monthly socials and rent affordable desk space on a rolling monthly contract basis so you can focus on creating amazing games. Contactdebbie at aurochdigital.com for more information or with news items for the next newsletterby 15th Augustplease!

SW Freelancer/Company Dev Directory
If you’re looking for people to help on a project, or you are available for work, add your details. Please only list info you’re happy to share in the public domain: http://bit.ly/bghdirectory

Next Games Hub Anti-Social: 31st July, 7.30pm

Join us for two great talks! This month we’ve got:

Achromatic Postmortem

Bristol Games Hub resident Lukas Roper will be talking about his recently released Windows Phone game Achromatic and the lessons he learnt during the development of the game and will discuss whether targeting a market other than iOS and Android is really worth it.

So join us on Thursday, 31st July at 7.30pm – we have a buzzer now! The entrance is off Thomas Street, just up from the junction of Jamaica St/Stokes Croft, above Dynamic Heating Services.

Dev Scene News

VoDo Far Out Bundle

Opposable Games

Opposable Games is helping to organise a VR meetup by the name of SouthWest VRon Tuesday 29th July featuring oodles of exciting guests. While the event is currently oversubscribed, joining the group will keep you notified of future events. Outside of SWVR, the team’s been working hard on Pesky gNats and a couple of as-yet unannounced projects. As ever, keep an eye on twitter and Facebook for updates as they come.

Force of Habit & Clockwork Cockoo

Force Of Habit & Clockwork Cuckoo’s collaboration project “Timmy Bibble’s Friendship Club” has an update coming on 25th July. It will feature a brand new arena – The Wonky Wagon saloon – where almost everything is destructible, and an updated Mexican Standoff mode. If you haven’t kept up to date with the progress of the game, check out the dev log, and as always if you haven’t already, please vote for it on Steam Greenlight. Much-o thanks! 🙂

Plus… updates from the Facebook group…

Jobs & Opportunities

500 More: Game Artist

500 More are looking for a game artist to contribute to our small team and help develop and produce the visual artefacts for our new game ‘Walking Safari’. The work required is to engage in the design process and produce mockups, develop a design style and produce completed artwork for screen elements (backgrounds, objects, animated characters, fonts, UI elements) for the game. The 2D game is a simple, arcade style mobile app and is being developed across the major mobile platforms using cross platform technologies. The game targets phone users only (tablet designs are not required for this project).

500 More is a startup organisation which develops mobile app games for health and wellbeing. Walking Safari is a game built around walking, and requires players to actually walk to play the game. Game characters form avatars, based on safari animals, which react to players levels of activity. The characters have to perform various tasks, arranged in levels of increasing difficulty and with occasional hazards to avoid. Players can also compete with other players or in teams against other teams. Because of the interaction between physical and virtual worlds, the game interface must be able to convey key information at a glance, players will not normally be looking at the screen during game play.

We are looking for an individual with experience of producing artwork for mobile app games and with an understanding of UI/UX. UI element design will be a significant part of the requirement so a familiarity with standard mobile UI components (scrollviews, tableviews, navigation bars, toolbars etc.) would be beneficial. You should be able to demonstrate a good eye for composition and colour .
Contact: Greg Smart – greg at 500more.com

Video Game Funding Guide

TIGA and Google have published a free guide to funding your video game. See here (PDF).

Entertainment on the move – Innovation Contest

Deadline – 29th July. IC tomorrow is offering 4 businesses up to £25k each to encourage digital innovation in the area of entertainment on the move in music, book and magazine publishing and games/interactive entertainment. More info.

Events

Monthly Unity Meetup

This month’s Unity meetup will be a slightly more open one – We don’t have a main speaker, so instead we will be opening up the Floor (a.k.a table with projector) to whoever would like to present something. This might involve showing off your latest game, showing off your utility project, showing off some fancy Unity related techniques or just plain showing off! If you have any issues you’d like to share, or questions about best practice, regardless of how much experience you have this will give us all plenty of opportunity to open up a discussion with the group. So if you have a topic you’d like to present a micro-talk on, get your powerpoint ready (3 graphs per slide minimum), if it’s a game get a less-buggy build together (see: adjective “Impossible”), or if your around just to chat, get your… vocal chords ready (recommend choir practice warmup), and after all the painstaking preparation if you have any time left at all, come along to the meet up, 23rd July 7.30pm at Bristol Games Hub.
More info: http://www.meetup.com/Bristol-Unity-Game-Developers-Meetup/events/195258072/

Playable Cities Conference

Featuring Google Creative Lab’s Tom Uglow, architect Usman Haque, artist Luke Jerram, Ogilvy’s Tara Austin and academics from the University of the West of England, this two-day international conference will explore the theme of the ‘Playable City’, asking what it might mean for citizens, urban planners, tech giants, small companies, artists and designers in imagining and making the cities of the future. On10 and 11 September, we will be bringing together a brilliant group of thinkers, makers, planners and civil disobedients to look at cities as playable places and ask the question: how do we make and unmake our future cities? The conference will feature playful interventions, networking, debate and discussion, artist commissions and an academic strand convened by the Digital Cultures Research Centre at UWE. For more information on the conference programme and speakers see; http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/conference14/